The Alternate
by Liberty94
Summary: What if Melody Pond ended up being saved by a most unlikely person? What if that person was a prophetess? What if, what if.  I don't own Doctor Who, yadi-yad...
1. Chapter 1

The boots planted themselves on the rung of a ladder, pushing their owner up. "Climb, Mel," the wearer of the boots grunted.

Up above her, a little girl looked down, her pointed face sour. "I'm climbing as fast as I can. It's your fault they're after us, anyway."

"Yeah, and if we get caught, you'll get put in a home where nobody can protect you from that thing. So get moving."

Mel grumbled, but did as she was told, her small hands and feet rapidly gaining ground on her bigger companion. They reached the top of the ladder and came out on the roof of an apartment building. "Where now, Jess?"

The older girl glanced around the flat top of the apartment, her brown eyes trying to find some outlet.

"There they are!" a shout came from below. Jess' unconcernedly glanced down, saw the black uniforms of the police, and walked over to a shed that stood – or rather, leaned – on top of the apartment roof. She yanked the door open, and sure enough, stairs led down into darkness.

"C'mon Mel." she said, gesturing downwards.

"It's dark," the little girl objected, "And besides, they're just going to catch us."

"Melody Pond," Jess said, practically glaring at her. "I have not been protecting you for the past year just so you can get yourself sent to juvie. Go."

Sighing, the little girl trotted over and plunged down the stairs. Jess glanced around, an enigmatic smile on her face, then followed, solidly shutting the door behind her.


	2. Chapter 2

Jessica Allen was not having a good day. Part of it might have been the dream she'd had the night before; it seemed that every time she was actually having a good night's sleep, the creepy eye-patch lady showed up, foretelling doom.

She didn't even want to think about what had happened the last time she'd dreamed of the black-clothed woman. That was still a sensitive subject.

At the moment, she and Mel were rocketing down the most rickety set of stairs she'd ever seen. They shook ominously under her boots, and the thought occurred to her that it would be a miracle if they got off them alive. She rounded the last landing, and the two of them clattered down the last ten steps, landing in an empty hallway.

It was dusty, and cluttered with abandoned junk. Jessica felt Mel, clinging to her hand, give an involuntary shudder. From what she remembered of the stories Mel had told her in the tumbledown sheds, sewers, and other crannies they'd lived in, she understood why. This place probably reminded her of the place she'd been forced to call home.

"C'mon." Jess said, tugging the little girl to the right. Mel followed unresistingly, though she didn't seem that happy about it.

"What if they've figured out where we went?"

"Then we're probably surrounded." Jess answered casually.

"And what'll we do?"

"Don't over think it, Glowie." Jess said, smirking down at the little girl.

Mel rolled her eyes. "Why do you still call me that?"

"Hey, I'm not the one who explodes into sparks, okay?" Jess shot back. A door loomed ahead of them, nearly falling off its hinges. Jess mentally cursed her bad luck – of course she'd pick a place that had long been abandoned, where there was no chance she'd find some convenient stray resident to create a diversion with.

The two of them burst out on the street. It was almost as abandoned as the building that called it home. A newspaper blew past in the dismal wind, and Jess could hear practically everything.

Nevertheless, it wasn't her ears that told her what would happen next. It was definite foreknowledge. She pushed Mel into the street, hissing, "Run."

The two of them ran across the empty asphalt, Mel's coat she'd gotten from who-knew-where billowing out behind her. They slid into an empty space between two of the buildings across the way, and burst out into the alley behind the brick blocks just as the sounds of shouting broke out behind them, hurried inquiries about where their target had gone.

There were no police in the alley, thankfully. They'd apparently not managed to cordon off the area in time. Jess slipped an arm around Mel's thin shoulders as they casually headed towards the place they were currently calling home. A successful escape had been made once again.


	3. Chapter 3

_Flashes of light and color. _

_ A bowtie._

_ A gleeful face, one eye covered by an eyepatch._

_ Fear and anger._

_ Three people, surrounded by smoke._

_ Herself._

Jessica jolted awake, her body tense. She consciously relaxed, shutting her eyes and counting to ten before she slowly sat up so as not to disturb the small ball that was curled up next to her. A peek of reddish-blonde hair showed above the blanket, hair that couldn't quite decide whether it wanted to be curly or straight.

Jess slowly eased away from the pallet they'd made to sleep on, reaching out to flick on their lantern. It illuminated their corner, making shadows dance against the walls of the warehouse. The warehouse was their newest home, an abandoned place not far from the apartment building they'd run through earlier. They'd have to move tomorrow. It wasn't safe to stay in one place for very long, for either of them.

She pulled a sketchbook out of her backpack and ran her fingers over its tattered cover. She'd bought it two years ago, when the dreams first started getting weird. It had reminded her of something she'd seen in a dream. A blue box.

Such impossible, amazing dreams that she had at times.

Lately, the dreams were impossible and creepy. Not the best combination in the world. She flipped the book open and, after a pause as she gathered her thoughts, it moved across the paper in quick, sure movements as she rendered what she'd seen.

She rarely drew these days. She'd remember what she'd seen, there was no need. Especially if it just showed the astronaut suit or the eyepatch woman…or if she couldn't remember them. Those were the ones that made her the most frightened, because she knew that it meant that, very soon, she'd be forgetting chunks of her life, like a tape that had been exposed to a magnet.

There was a drawing in her sketchbook she could never remember, no matter how long she knew she'd been staring at it. Nothing worked, no trick of her mind, no mental drawing of it. The moment she looked away, it was as if she'd never seen it at all. She remembered very well when she'd drawn it: she and Mel had hunched in the window of a shop front for half an hour, watching it sit across the way. Mel had seemed upset, though she couldn't tell Jess why. She just seemed on-edge, and said that the creature gave her a bad feeling. But when they looked away, they couldn't remember what they'd been looking at. Only the narrow pencil drawing in Jess' book told them they'd been doing anything.

But tonight, she wasn't interested in the people she couldn't remember, nor even in the eyepatch woman. Goodness knew she'd seen enough of that face to last her for a whole lifetime.

It was the man with the bowtie. And the woman with him. And the tall, thin man dressed in armor.

The last was a new addition. Jessica couldn't remember him, not his face or the armor he wore like a second skin. She remembered a mention of him once before, just the barest suggestion. Rory. The woman she still didn't know by name, only by her title: the girl who waited. For what, Jessica wondered?

The other man, the one with the bowtie, didn't seem to have a name. He was just the Doctor. The others looked up to him. He was their leader, she supposed, though why they'd need a leader, she didn't know.

But one thing was certain, and that was that they were looking for something. It was something precious, something important. Something more than important. Something that could change the universe.

The outline of the woman's face wandered from Jessica's pencil as she considered that. How could one thing be so important?

A blocky outline. The box. It should be blue, but she'd used up her colored pencils. It seemed wrong for it just to be black and white.

Behind her, Mel shifted in her sleep, muttering something about hamburgers. Jess glanced back at her just long enough to be sure she was still asleep, then continued. Delicate shading on the armor, getting it just right.

She set the pencil down and sat back, studying the drawing.

"Another dream?" Mel asked, her voice bleary from sleep.

"Yeah. No biggie." Jess answered. She heard Mel get up, drag a blanket over and settle down next to her. The little girl pulled the sketchbook over, lifting it up so she could see.

"Oh, look. It's the bowtie man again."

"The Doctor." Jess corrected quietly, her finger running over the pencil rendering of the instrument he held. She still didn't have a name for it.

"Do you think he could help us?" Mel asked, looking hopefully up at Jess.

Jess grinned. "I bet so."

Mel leaned her head on Jessica's shoulder, feeling a story. "How would he help us?"

"Well, you see that man there? His name is Rory, and he's a very famous Roman general. He's from the past, you know, and the Doctor brought him forward in time to help find the one person who would always wait for him…"


	4. Chapter 4

Jessica and Mel set out the next morning, leaving the warehouse empty as they had found it. "I wonder what living in a real house feels like," Mel rambled as they headed for the train station, "with a mum and a dad who tuck you in at night, and where nobody tries to kill you."

"It's pretty boring, actually." Jess supplied, kicking a rock.

"You only say that because now you get to shoot things." Mel said, darting a sideways glance up at the taller girl.

Jess smiled happily. "I do. It's awesome. I should hang out with time traveling glowworms more often."

"I'm not a glowworm. It's called regeneration."

"Same difference." Jess said, grinning outright now. Mel growled deep in her throat, an odd sound for such a little girl. Jess lightly punched her on the arm. "I know you can take a joke better than that, so stop."

Mel grabbed her arm and twisted it around. "Oh yes, I can take a joke."

"Ow." Jess said in protest, though she was laughing. She swept her leg out, catching Mel's ankles. The little girl was forced to let go to keep her balance, and Jess laughed. "Never go up against a karate expert, kid."

"You're not an expert." Mel answered, giving her companion a sour look.

Jess shrugged. "Close enough for government work."

"I really don't like you," the little girl huffed, crossing her arms.

"Yeah you do. I feed you," Jess answered, her grin returning.

"I'm not quite that prosaic, Jessica Allen, and I want you to know that I do in fact have principles and scruples, and…there's another word I can't think of, but I'm that, too."

Jess just laughed. "Sure you are. C'mon Wordsworth, let's go find us a train."

This was how Jess and Mel mainly got around: hopping trains, like hobos from some Depression-era movie. That was how Jess had originally gotten the idea, of course, two years before when she'd first set out on her own. After she found Mel, the little girl had just gotten pulled into it.

Jess tried not to think about how she was corrupting the next generation.

The two of them strolled into the station, looking like something between vagrants and kids who you could actually expect to be in a station. Jess, with eighteen years under her belt, could possibly have been a guardian for the little girl beside her, who didn't look older than six, though she acted much older. Jessica still hadn't quite figured out how that was possible, though she thought it had something to do with the glowworm tendencies Mel occasionally displayed. And time travel.

That had been one of the subjects they'd discussed just after Jessica had met her. Before she changed her other face. It had been an older face, with the body of a ten year old girl attached to it. Still, it had been odd to find her wandering around the streets of New York City, her bare feet padding along with no real goal in mind. Childish vagrants were nothing new to Jess though, and she had mostly ignored the little girl.

Until she'd found the same tiny figure nestled in the place she'd chosen for a bed. Jess had just stood there for a long minute, fists clenched at her sides, until the little girl apparently sensed her and looked up, a wan smile on her face. "Hello." she'd said. Her voice was stilted, the tiniest hint of an accent deep within it. "I'm sorry about this, but I feel as if I'm dying, don't you see. I need a quiet place, far from people, so could you kindly go away 'till I'm through?"

"You know, they make hospitals for that." Jess had said, trying to keep the biting tone from her voice.

The girl had laughed at her. "Oh, but I have a way out of death. It's the most wonderful thing. Would you like to see?"

"That's sort of impossible, so maybe I can get you a taxi or an ambulance or something, and you can-"

"But it's already beginning," and Mel had very calmly stood up, staring down at her hands that were glowing with a golden light. She had looked up at Jess with a huge smile on her face, and then…

She'd exploded. Jess could still remember the wind that had whipped at her clothes and hair as she stumbled backwards, landing in a pile of trash. Finally, the fire storm had died down, and a completely new little girl had stumbled out, shaking her strawberry-blonde hair and coughing gold dust.

Jess hadn't been quite sure what to do about this odd creature that stood in front of her – but then the girl smiled, and looked at Jess with an oddly gleeful expression. She held out her dress and twirled. "What do you think? Do I look nice? Please say yes."

"You look…um…what just happened?"

"I regenerated," she had said with a delicate shrug. "my name is Melody Pond, and I'm a time traveler. Well, sort of. I have to have help to travel, I can't do it on my own." A grin had flickered on her lips. "That's how I got here, you know."

"Time travel." Jess picked herself up, brushing her jeans off. "Right. Well, since you seem alright…goodbye little girl."

She'd started to head off. Then, predictably, the little girl had gotten herself in trouble. She'd squeaked, Jess had glanced over her shoulder…and there Mel was, struggling in the grip of two soldiers. Naturally, Jess couldn't just leave her there to be carted off to who-knew-where.

So Jess had jumped in with both feet, without thinking – as usual – and had given the soldiers what for. And run off with possibly the most dangerous person on the planet.

Sometimes, she still wondered what she'd been thinking.

Right now was turning into one of those times, with Mel rocking back and forth on her toes, humming a tune that wasn't at all familiar to Jess. Occasionally, she'd give a smile that was sure to look halfway deranged to some poor passerby.

"Come on, and stop doing that." Jess said, grabbing Mel's hand and tugging her towards the tracks.

They nonchalantly strolled out of the station, and started hiking down the tracks. Time to get moving.


	5. Chapter 5

Twenty minutes later, they had managed to climb up in an empty boxcar of the old variety. There were usually at least one of these to be found on any train, especially one departing from a town like this, where buildings had fallen into disrepair and nobody really cared anymore.

Besides, Mel was good at hiding.

Finally, the train ground into motion, and the two of them dared to breathe. Their chances of being found now were very slim. Mel went to sit in the open doorway, dangling her legs outside. No matter how many times Jess told her it was dangerous, it was always the first thing she did when they hopped a train. It was probably just because she was an insolent, stubborn little wretch.

Jess sat down with her back to the wall and broke out their lunch – a pitiful thing it was, just crackers and cheese and a couple apples. Mel snatched up one of the apples and rolled it around in her hands, considering it. "Do you think they'll ever get tired of chasing me?" she suddenly asked.

"Who?"

"You know who." Mel said, not even bothering to look at Jess reprovingly. She directed her scowl out to the passing trees instead. Glaring at Jess never worked.

After a moment's pause, Jess slowly said, "Maybe. Someday. When you're old and gray and you can stop being so darned obvious about yourself."

Mel sighed and lay back on the wooden floor of the car, pulling her legs up so her feet rested just on the edge of the open door, her toes tantalizingly close to the open air. "Do you think my mum and dad could ever find me?"

Jess' mouth twisted into the wry imitation of a smile. "I thought you said they were dead."

Mel looked over at her. "You're not the only one who has dreams, you know. I did, too. Last night. I dreamed they were alive. And they came to get me, and we were all happy."

"Sounds like the dream I had when I thought my mom's boyfriend wasn't a jerk. Face it, Mel – the eyepatch lady-"

"Madame Kovarian."

"Yeah, whatever – she's probably right. Your parents are dead, because do you really think a woman like that'd leave them alive?"

Mel looked away from Jess again, tilting her chin down so she could see her hands. "Sometimes I think I can remember things. Little flashes of my mum's face. A funny man who could understand me. And then they all went away, and there was only her left, and the people I can't remember…"

Jess could tell Mel was fixing to drift off into sleep. Her voice stumbled over itself, and her eyes were drifting shut. "Sometimes I think I can hear them calling me…like if I'd just wait five seconds, just a little bit longer when they're chasing us…I'll find them, because my parents'll come to find me…"


	6. Chapter 6

"Doctor, I promise you…I just feel that if we waited five more seconds, if we went a little faster…we'd find her. We'd find my baby girl."

The Doctor looked sadly up at the red-headed woman who was leaning on the TARDIS console a few feet from him. Her hair was falling around her round face, her expression earnest. She looked so much like the little girl he'd met, so many years ago. Not that it felt like many years ago. It felt like barely three years ago. Which, of course, was how long it had been.

And one of those years – oh, such a very long year it had been.

Time travel. Such a temperamental thing it was: you never quite knew whether you were facing up or down or in another direction entirely, and measuring the actual amount of time that had passed was such a tricky thing because, after all, you could be in five minutes ago for eternity if you wanted.

"Doctor." Amy's voice was insistent, demanding an answer, her Scottish lilt getting worse.

"Oh. Yes." the Doctor looked up, unconsciously straightening his bowtie. His coat was lying to the side, thrown over his chair. He'd been working obsessively on the TARDIS, trying to think of any other place they could look for Melody. There weren't many places left.

"Well?" Amy insisted.

"Amy, we've been trying." Rory began, trying to explain. "There's just so many places to look, and it's time we moved on from here-"

"Why?" Amy said, her voice breaking, foreboding tears. "We've moved on and on, and we haven't found her."

"There are only two things we know for certain." the Doctor said, breaking into the conversation again. "One, Kovarian doesn't have her anymore, so she's been coming after us. She thinks we have her. That could work in our favor. Two, she's somewhere in the future, that is, after 1960. We've been searching. You said we should come to 2011 first. I'm wondering why."

"No reason." Amy said carefully, avoiding eye contact. "Just, y'know…it was a good time."

The Doctor stared at her for a minute. She was keeping something back, he could tell. But he wasn't going to try to get it out of her, not right now. No sense in that. "Fine, then. We've been up and down, Amy, looking everywhere. We haven't found her. It's time to move on."

Amy's shoulders slumped, and she leaned into Rory. "You said we'd find her," she finally said, her voice hardly louder than a whisper. "You promised. And we saw River. So we've got to find her."

"We will find her. Just not here." the Doctor assured. And with a flick of his fingers, the TARDIS was on its way.


	7. Chapter 7

An African-American little girl and an eighteen year old brunette, hair chopped short, dressed one step above gangster, could attract quite a bit of attention – especially if they were traipsing along a set of train tracks half a mile outside the nearest town, which happened to be little more than a hamlet.

And the attention was often entirely of the worst sort.

This was what made Jessica glance frequently over her shoulders as they walked through the forest, one hand on the pocket where she kept a knife concealed. Though she didn't know what she'd do with a knife if guns showed up.

"Why do you keep doing that?" Mel asked, looking up at the older girl.

"No reason. Just nerves. Hanging out with you is dangerous." Jess answered, trying to summon a grin.

"There's no reason. We haven't seen anybody for the past few months. They're far behind us."

Jess turned again to face behind them. "How do you know?"

"How do you know they're still after us?" Mel asked, stolidly stomping through a high stand of grass.

"I have dreams that can tell the future, what do you think?"

"You dreamed about her, didn't you?" Mel said, stopping dead and staring at Jessica with fear in her face.

"Maybe." Jess answered, grabbing the little girl's shoulder and pushing her along. "Let's just go, 'kay?"

"What did you dream? Jess, tell me!"

Jess just ignored the little girl. One thing was bound to be bad when you could see the future in your dreams, and that was déjà vu. It never meant anything good. And she had it at the moment, very bad.

Not again.


	8. Chapter 8

They attacked suddenly, three regular soldiers backed up by two of the freaky robed people. For some reason, they reminded Jess of Sith. It was probably just the robes and how she couldn't see their faces.

The soldiers came running out of the brush, surrounding the two, their guns leveled at Jessica.

Mel clung to Jessica's hand, her grip making Jess' hand go white. Not that the older girl seemed to mind. She was holding onto Mel almost as tight. "What do you want?" she asked, trying to sound casual.

"You've forgotten, Melody," a hard, cold voice came. Out of the bushes stepped the eyepatch lady, irritably batting at a branch that tried to cling to her collar. "You've forgotten what we taught you, what we trained you to do."

Mel didn't answer. "Leave her alone." Jess growled.

"Oh look, it's the little guard dog. You're really getting to be quite the nuisance, dear. I'll have to kill you eventually, you know."

Jess felt Mel's hand squeeze even tighter around hers. "So glad I could bother your perfect existence." Jess said conversationally, trying not to show how scared she actually was. _Think, think, what happens?_ she screamed at herself in her mind, trying to work ahead of these people, to see what they'd do.

What good were dreams that could tell the future when you couldn't remember the details?

"We can do this the hard way, or we can do it the easy way." the eyepatch woman continued. "We've caught up to you time and again, Jessica, and each time, you've managed to get away. That won't happen here."

"Pretty confident, aren't you?" Jess asked, still fighting to keep her voice calm.

"For good reason. What do you have? A little girl who can't defend herself and you, without a weapon in the world."

"You still haven't answered my question from last time," Jess said, acting as if she hadn't heard. "I'd really like to know."

"I don't see why it matters."

"I want to know why I should give you Mel. Seems to me, from all I've heard, that you've hurt her more than helped her."

"Oh yes, you and your fairy stories that try to go against what we know to be true. It's very simple. There's a man, a terrible man. He's a warrior, a killer. He's killed so many over the years…his own people for starters. Then there were the defenseless Angels, who only wanted to be left alone. Or the Daleks, who had triumphed over their own weaknesses to survive, and were torn apart by that man. The Doctor." the woman said the title like a curse word, spitting it out at Jess. Her gaze moved from Jess to Mel. "And that, Melody, is what you were born to correct. You must kill him, don't you understand? You must kill him so he can never hurt people again."  
>"Jess dreams about him," Mel said, her voice trembling. "He's nice."<p>

"Dreams?" the eyepatch woman looked eagerly up at Jess. "What do you mean, dreams?"

"Nothing. I have dreams about crazy people. Sometimes I wonder if you aren't some kind of weird trick concocted from my subconscious. And since that's what I'm pretty sure you are, we're just gonna-"

One of the robed people moved to block Jess' way as she tried to leave the circle.

"Face it, Jessica," the eyepatch woman said, "this is the end of the road for you and Melody. You can't go any farther. You can join us or die. Your choice."

Jess turned to face her, searching her face for any hints as to what she was planning. Memory, vague at the edges of her mind, intruded. Ah yes.

"Mel. To the tracks." she whispered. "Now."

Mel jumped forward, darting past the eyepatch woman. Jess rammed her fists into the stomach of the soldier next to her, catching his gun and turning it around, preparing it to fire as she took aim at the eyepatch woman. "Try and kill me, and you're dead."

She saw Mel standing safely on one of the train tracks, easily balancing. She turned her eyes back firmly to the eyepatch woman. "So you can tell the Robes back there to turn their lightsabers off."

The hiss that had started up cut off as the robed men returned their swords to their sheaths at a nod from the eyepatch woman. The woman came one step closer to Jess. "This is not over, girl."

"Oh, I bet not. But here's a little present from me, just to remind you." Jess shot her in the leg, whirling to catch one of the soldiers with another shot, then jumping over the fallen body through a hail of bullets. She ran all-out down the train tracks, knowing eventually they'd get of range.

She heard Mel pelting along beside her, shouting, "We're gonna die, you know!"

The bullets stopped coming as the eyepatch woman screamed behind them, and then the two of them were in the trees, ducking over and under obstructions.

Finally, they dared to stop. Jess was still cradling the stolen gun in her arms, though it was pretty obvious she wasn't going to be able to take it anywhere near civilization. It would get her thrown in jail faster than she could say eyepatch.

"What are we going to do?" Mel finally asked.

Minutes stretched by as Jess tried to think of something reassuring to say, something that would make her look like she was in control. In the end, the best she could come up with was, "I don't know."


	9. Chapter 9

Jess could remember the first time a dream had come true. She'd been seven, and she'd dreamed about her birthday and a pink cake and a brand new Barbie doll.

That had been back before all the trouble had started.

She'd turned eight, and there had been a pink cake and a new Barbie doll for her, complete with two new outfits. She hadn't dreamed about the outfits. The similarity to her dream had made her happy all the same.

Two months later, it had happened again. She'd dreamed about a dog walking into their backyard and staying with them. It had happened three days later, with the arrival of Prophet. She'd named him, and told everybody that she'd dreamed about him before he came.

Her mom called her imaginative, her dad told her to quit talking about it, and her friends left her alone.

They thought she was crazy.

Jess had slowly learned to not talk about the dreams that came more and more often. She didn't tell anyone about the time she dreamed of a meteor shower, or the opening of a store, or her dog dying…or the car accident that had left her mom fatally injured. And then had left her mom dead.

She tried her hardest to keep the dreams from coming, then. She went to a doctor, who called them night terrors. He said they were probably induced by her mom's accident. He put her on medicine.

Six months later, the dreams were back. Her dad had retreated deep into some shell nobody could get through. And Jess was on her own. She was sixteen when the blue box first appeared. Dreams stopped being terrible. She paid attention.

And somehow, she knew that she'd see the blue box someday. Just like she'd seen everything else.


End file.
